Santorum: Agent of Darkness

Rick Santorum is the textbook example of the politician who panders to his base. In this instance, the social conservatives. And higher education is the latest target of his demagoging. Colleges and universities are liberal "indoctrination mills". They undermine faith. They persecute and punish conservatives.

Rick says that he knows this from experience. "I've gone through it," he says. He survived the waterboarding of his brain at Penn State.

Santorum demonizes President Obama for subscribing to the values of a higher education. Mr. Obama is a snob for doing so. A snob, I imagine, like Eustace Tilley , the cartoon coxcomb on the New Yorker covers. This is the red meat Santorum is throwing to his base.

It's an old strategy that appeals to the anti-intellectualism in human nature. The primitive animus against reason and learning. The flashbacks to the barbarians who stormed the gates of Rome. To Socrates sentenced to die by drinking hemlock. To the burning of the ancient Library at Alexandria. Calling Obama a snob is the modern equivalent of deriding the 'brain trust' of FDR or that egghead of the 1950s, Adlai Stevenson.

Americans are not so gullible. They can see through this philistine smokescreen. They can recognize a divisive ruse. This is nothing less than an all-out attack on what makes our democracy the shining city on a hill: an informed citizenry. Education, after all, enlightens. Demagogues, including Santorum, prefer the darkness of ignorance.

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Meet The Blogger

Aquinas wired

I'm Jerry Partacz, happily married to my wife Julie for over 40 years. I have four children and six grandchildren. I'm enjoying retirement after 38 years of teaching. I now have an opportunity to share my thoughts on many things. I'm an incurable optimist. I also love to solve crossword puzzles and to write light verse. I love to read, to garden, to play the piano, to collect stamps and coins, and to watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm".